You can search our FAQs in three ways: by category, keyword, or both category and keyword.

Choose a category:

Keyword:

Question: Can the MEPS-HC data be used to make estimates of disease prevalence?

It is most appropriate to use MEPS data to generate estimates of "treated prevalence" for conditions. Using MEPS-HC data to estimate disease prevalence is inadvisable because MEPS questions only collect information on conditions associated with medical events or those reported to have bothered the sample person. Therefore, any undiagnosed or unreported conditions are not captured. However, MEPS data can be used to generate estimates of "treated prevalence" based on conditions associated with reported medical events.